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Lhamo Thondup was born
in a
peasant family on July 6, 1935 in the small village of Taktser in the north-eastern Tibetan province of Amdo.
At the age of two, he was recognized as the
reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama. As such, Tibetans
consider Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, to be a
living Buddha, a manifestation of the Buddha. He was
throne on February 22, 1940 at Lhasa. At the age of
six, he began his monastic education in the Tibetan
capital of Lhasa. In early March 1959, in front of
20,000 scholars, the Dalai Lama passed his final
examination to qualify as a Geshe. At the age of 15 he
was asked by the Tibetan Government to take the full
responsibility as Head of the state and raise voice
against the Chinese invasion of Tibet. An appeal to
united Nations was made.
On March 10, 1959,
Chinese military invited |
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the Dalai Lama to attend, without bodyguards,
a theatrical performance to be held inside their compound. Rumours spread throughout Lhasa that the Dalai Lama would be
kidnapped by the Chinese military. By the morning of 10 March,
huge crowds of Tibetans had gathered outside the Norbulingka,
the Dalai Lama's Summer Palace, with the intention of
protecting him. This was the beginning of the Tibetan Uprising
against the Chinese in Tibet. During the Uprising, which
lasted for nearly two weeks, it has been estimated that more
than 87,000 Tibetans died. The Dalai Lama and his immediate
family escaped in disguise from Lhasa on the evening of 17
March, 1959. He crossed the border into India on 30 March,
where he was granted asylum. Approximately 80,000 Tibetans
followed the Dalai Lama across the Himalayas into exile.
The Indian Government
offered the Dalai Lama a home in Dharamshala, a small town in
the foothills of the Himalayas in the state of Himachal
Pradesh. From here, the Tibetan Government-in-Exile drafted a
constitution for an autonomous and democratic Tibet and holds
elections for the Tibetan Parliament.
The Dalai Lama did not
travel outside India until 1967, when he visited Japan and
Thailand. Since then, he has visited more than 45 countries,
giving Buddhist teachings and talks on a wide variety of
spiritual and ethical topics and urging world leaders to
assist him in bringing about a resolution to the Tibetan
situation. In 1988, the Dalai Lama put forward the 'Strasbourg
Proposal' to the European Parliament in which he called for
genuine autonomy for Tibet rather independence, thus making a
major compromise. In 1989, the Dalai Lama was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize for his peaceful struggle for the liberation
of Tibet. |
